The present invention relates to three-dimensional imaging. In particular, three-dimensional (3D) imaging uses data acquired in a different format than the display format, such as 3D imaging from data for a medical scan.
Volume rendering generates two-dimensional images from three-dimensional data volumes. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) and ultrasound scanning use volume rendering for three-dimensional imaging. Data representing a volume, such as data representing a plurality of two-dimensional planes spaced within the volume or as data representing a plurality of different lines spaced within a volume, is obtained. The 3D representation is rendered from this data. Typically, software that is computationally expensive and time consuming implements volume rendering.
Ultrasound data formatted in a display Cartesian coordinate grid are volume rendered using graphic accelerators, such as graphic accelerators for general purpose personal computers. The data is interpolated or scan converted along a Cartesian coordinate 3D grid before volume rendering. Three-dimensional texturing using application programming interfaces, such as OpenGL or DirectX, is used to render the three-dimensional data set.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,852,081 discloses volume rendering three-dimensional data sets in an acoustic or other non-Cartesian grid in real time using graphics accelerators. For example, commercially available graphic accelerators cards using 3D texturing may provide 256×256×128 8 bit volumes at 25 volumes per second or better for generating a display of 512×512 pixels using ultrasound data. By rendering from data at least in part in an acoustic grid, the amount of scan conversion processing is reduced or eliminated prior to the rendering. A processor provides texture coordinates and corresponding vertices for quadrilaterals or triangles defined in a Cartesian space to a graphics processing unit (GPU). The GPU identifies the appropriate texture data and renders the 3D representation.